General Credit Topics

[cfstr1]

Hi everyone, I am an authorized user on my husbands credit card. We are looking in to adding me on so it is a joint account. They said that in order to do that they need to check my credit, even if I am the one who has been paying the account and bringing the utilization down. I am working on improving my credit and my husbands credit. In college I had a Chase account that was charged off. But that was more than 15 years ago. Do they remember those things? Should it be easy to add me if my husband already has the account and wants to put me on as a joint. The account has a $1400 dollar limit and has been open for 6.5 years. All payments on-time due to autopay minimums of $45.00. I have a Geico Platimun mastercard with a $500.00 limit and 30% utilization that I will be paying off next week. Any suggestions? My current scores are EX 584 EQ 545 TU 505. However I had some baddies drop off and decreased the utilization on my card.

[masdeocho]

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cfstr1 wrote:
Hi everyone, I am an authorized user on my husbands credit card. We are looking in to adding me on so it is a joint account. They said that in order to do that they need to check my credit, even if I am the one who has been paying the account and bringing the utilization down. I am working on improving my credit and my husbands credit. In college I had a Chase account that was charged off. But that was more than 15 years ago. Do they remember those things? Should it be easy to add me if my husband already has the account and wants to put me on as a joint. The account has a $1400 dollar limit and has been open for 6.5 years. All payments on-time due to autopay minimums of $45.00. I have a Geico Platimun mastercard with a $500.00 limit and 30% utilization that I will be paying off next week. Any suggestions? My current scores are EX 584 EQ 545 TU 505. However I had some baddies drop off and decreased the utilization on my card.

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1.  Get your 3 current reports and make sure the Chase CO dropped off your report.  It definitely should have, so if it's still there, dispute it as "outdated".

2.  Adding you all depends on your credit -- you don't get any points for being an AU because you had no responsibility to pay for the card.

3.  Try to pay more than the minimum payment.  I don't know what your balance is, but it may take you a long time and a lot of money in finance charges to pay it back.

4.  Don't apply until your util is down and the baddies drop.

5.  When you apply to be added to the card, ask them for a CLI.

Good luck!

[cfstr1]

Thanks for the help. The old account and collections have been long gone from my report. What scores do they look for? We are trying to do this before September when AU's go away. Or should I just apply for my own card. My hubby is in good standing with them, but has over 40,000 in credit card debt on other accounts that he has let faulter before we were married and those are due to drop off in the next 2 years.

[Bruiser]

just a tidbit, only one of the CRA will drop AU's in sept,...the other 2 will follow sometime in 2008

it's still good to get the ball rolling now and stay ahead

Message Edited by Bruiser on 06-25-2007 11:53 AM